Make Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 Format

After the tenth time saving an Excel spreadsheet and then emailing it to a co-worker still using Office 2003, I’m willing to save in 2003 format by default. It’s not like the rest of the office is going to switch for a very long time anyway, and this way I can stop sending them the wrong documents by mistake!

Start by clicking that big round Office Button in the upper left hand corner.

In the resulting menu, click the Excel Options button.

Now click the Save tab, and then change the “Safe files in this format” dropdown to “Excel 97-2003 Workbook”.

 

Finally! Now I can’t accidentally send files in the wrong format anymore. Was really starting to irritate me.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. This article was written on 06/21/07 and tagged with: Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office

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Comments (5)

1. September 2, 2008 12:36 pm
   Lake Fred

   Thanks! Why can’t they have the same extension? Just another reason to not like Microsoft. They want us to buy stupid Vista.

2. September 13, 2008 5:47 am
   Sundal Bolong

   AGree with you Fred

3. October 29, 2008 2:30 pm
   Josh

   Vista isn’t stupid, that’s just your opinion. My opinion is that Vista is a huge leap from XP, in a good way. Many of the big problems that occurred in Vista when it was first released are either gone or occur a lot less often.

4. March 3, 2009 7:00 am
   Joann

   Be careful. There are some nice features in 2007 that don’t translate into 2003. Your formulas may come out as values, making MTD and YTD columns a mess (and really pissing off upper managers still on the old software).

5. April 8, 2009 5:02 am
   siva prakash

   ladies and gentlemen,

   i am a novice to the computers and i wish to master ms office 2007 perfectly through video tutorials
   (most probably) or through tutorials over internet only.

   could anyone suggest me “the best video tutorials” sites for downloading and practicing the said ms office 2007 ?
   thank you,
   yours sincerely,
   siva prakash (from India).